A Plea of Denial
by 0shadowcast
Summary: In a world where humans have a mark on their wrist mirrored only by the one on their soulmate's wrist, Accelerator finds that he has lost too much in his quest for power.


**A Plea of Denial**

 _ **Summary:**_ _In a world where humans have a mark on their wrist mirrored only by the one on their soulmate's wrist, Accelerator finds that he has lost too much in his quest for power._

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _I own nothing created by anyone else._

* * *

Misaka Mikoto stumbled, her exhausted body unable to keep up with her movements. Her body moved as if she'd overused her power, though her mind was alert and aware, skittish with the realization of what she was about to do. She'd already fooled Kamijou Tohma. To think that irritating boy would be the only one to see her last – besides _him_. He'd be the only one to know of her deadly, dark secret. Of the ten thousand lives she'd killed.

" _Why aren't you doing something about this? It's barbaric! How could you them be killed? Ten thousand! Like they were worth nothing!"_

 _Mikoto laughed, "They're just clones, idiot. Kill one, they'll build another. They don't actually cost that much, so I suppose they_ are _worth close to nothing." It stabbed at her to say something so…but she didn't have a choice. If she spoke the truth, he would get involved and this was her problem. She had started this. It was her task to end it._

 _Tohma stared at her, eyes wide in disbelief. He couldn't believe that someone like her – someone he'd never think capable of something like this could condone…_

" _It would be best if you stayed out of it. I…" Mikoto steeled herself. She couldn't let her voice break now, "consented to this experiment. So did he. And so did they. Don't interfere."_

She had left him there, shocked and horrified at the callous way she had responded to his accusations. She couldn't let him know. No one could know that she planned to end herself tonight. If Mikoto was killed in one hit – all of their data, all of their calculations and experiments would become meaningless.

Mikoto saw _him_ , standing over one of her sisters – the one she had met earlier. She gritted her teeth as she jumped down from the fence. Accelerator turned towards her, white hair ghost-like in the darkness, skin pale and almost luminescent. If he wasn't this…murderer…she would have found him almost attractive – and wasn't _that_ just disgusting?

"The Original, _again_? Maybe I should just kill you and be over with it," he sighed, turning a disinterested glance towards her injured clone trying desperately to get up. Mikoto could easily see from here all the places her body was broken, all the rivulets of blood that slowly seeped out. She tried to stem the hatred that sprang up at the sight, as well as the overwhelming guilt that left her blinking back tears. The girl opened her mouth to speak and Mikoto only quieted her with a seething glance, hair rising on end with anger. It had come. The moment she was going to die. She was still in Middle School and Mikoto had never anticipated dying this early. She had so much left to do! So much left to experience. She still had to grow up and mature and get over her stupid love for childlike things.

She wanted to see Kuroko and Uiharu-san and Saten-san one more time. Eat ice-cream in the park or sleep through class. Go shopping for frilly pajamas and just have _one_ more day.

It was all going to be cut short because of this boy's craze for power, but she couldn't – _wouldn't_ – let anymore of her sister's die because of a mistake she'd made so long ago. Mikoto knew she was too trusting, _knew_ she had trusted the wrong people as a girl and it was now time to pay the price.

She walked towards her clone slowly, Accelerator's eyes tracing her movements indifferently. Mikoto kneeled by the fallen figure of her clone and put a gentle hand on her head, "It's ok." She smiled and her clone's eyes widened in horror as she got up and faced the other.

"How touching," Accelerator remarked, bored.

"Fight me," she requested simply. Accelerator glanced at her, his face schooled into an indifferent expression while his eyes burned with a kind of hunger. She spread her feet slightly for balance, bracing herself, electricity sparking off of her body in tiny flashes of light.

"NO! Stop!" The shout came from somewhere above and Mikoto whirled around and – no. The idiot!

It was the _idiot_. Standing behind the fence that surrounded them, looking down at them with a kind of horrified expression that made her wish she hadn't seen it. "Don't. What do you think this will solve? You know you're not strong enough to fight him and win! What do you think you're doing?!" Kamijou Tohma shouted as he began to climb over the fence.

Accelerator sighed, frustrated, "Another idiot?" He lifted his hand against the glare of the lights to see clearly and that's when she saw it. The dark mark that stood upon the soft skin of his wrist, proudly as if it were something to be proud of. Mikoto felt her blood freeze. The series of black lines and dots that she'd memorized all too well, the same mark upon her own wrist.

"Kami-," she breathed in horror, knees going weak as she fell to the ground, clutching at her own wrist. The rush of realization had made her go blank, her mind whirring in her head and yet coming up with nothing to justify… _this._ Accelerator had her matching soulmate mark. _Her_ mark. _Hers._ _He_ turned at her despaired gasp, eyes widening in confusion at how terrified she seemed. Kamijou stopped several metres from where they were, equally bewildered as he stared between them.

Mikoto couldn't take her eyes off of her clutched wrist, trying to find an inconsistency. _Any_ inconsistency, as long as there was one. Soulmate marks were never a guarantee that two people would get together. They were simply an indication of the optimal personality and physical characteristic match. Sometimes, two soulmates never met and each eventually stayed single or married another. Sometimes they did meet and the situation surrounding them prevented them from getting together. Sometimes, there were people with no marks on their wrists. She'd just never thought…

Laughs bubbled out of her throat like hysterical sobs and they were probably something in between anyway. Eyes clenched and nails digging into her wrist to the point of breaking skin, she must have been a pathetic sight. Kamijou stared at her, taking one stuttered step forward but stopping again, not sure what to do. Accelerator on the other hand was looking at her like he was on the cusp of realization. Mikoto wasn't really sure what he would do if he did. She saw when the last piece of the puzzle fit into place, the way his eyes snapped to her wrist and widened in disbelief.

"You have my mark," he breathed, taking one shocked step forward as Mikoto shook herself out of laughter and scrambled back.

"What?" Kamijou ran to her side, "Your mark?" He looked at Accelerator, who was far too distracted with the sight of Mikoto to answer.

She glared at him then, the last, lingering traces of laughter and tears fading as she pulled from that well of strength inside her to keep her composure.

Kamijou glanced down at her wrist, still covered, and it struck him, "Soulmate mark. You two are…"

"No," Mikoto grit out, ignoring the way that Accelerator flinched just the slightest bit, "We're not. Matching marks are never a guarantee and in this case, I'd sooner ask him to kill me than want something like this. In fact, I believe that was my original plan." She stood up shakily, ignoring Kamijou's presence behind her and faced her supposed soulmate, disregarding the uncertain look in his eye. Whatever he was, regretful or not, she couldn't – wouldn't – bring herself to forgive what he'd done.

His eyes hardened and it was the first time she saw him serious, "I'm not going to kill you."

"Oh?" Mikoto couldn't help but taunt. The resignation that came with knowing her mark's match giving her strength in turn, a kind of wild recklessness that made her want to risk her own life, "You seemed so eager to do it before."

"Why would you want to kill yourself?" Kamijou breathed in shock, finally realizing her initial plan. She ignored him.

Accelerator glanced at her, saw the burning hatred in her eyes and turned away, trying to categorize this odd, sad feeling that crept up into his chest. The last thing Mikoto saw was the tap of his foot before everything went dark.

* * *

 _Kami_ , why were her eyes so heavy? Mikoto let them remain closed as she tried to sort out the thoughts in her head, vaguely aware of the electricity coursing through her body as her mind worked, the neurons that sparked in her brain. She somewhat recalled meeting the Idiot by the bridge, challenging Accelerator, her mark on his wrist…

That particular memory brought back a stinging sense of pain and loss and Mikoto had to fight to supress that knot rising in her throat and the burning behind her closed eyes. She opened them, wincing at the crusty sensation as her body fluidly sat up and she looked around.

"You're awake," Kamijou sat in a chair by the corner of the room, staring at her with too serious, too detached eyes.

Mikoto flinched, the adrenaline long gone. She sighed, closing her eyes, "How long was I out?"

"Just over a day. He knocked you out pretty well, and you were exhausted enough as it was."

"He didn't do anything else?"

His eyes flickered to her wrist and she resisted the urge to hide it in the sheets.

"He seemed honestly regretful."

Her eyes turned hard, "As if that matters—"

"He told me to protect you." There was a sad tone to his voice, something filled with resignation, sympathy, and an odd form of understanding.

"It doesn't matter!" Mikoto slammed her fist down on the bed, "Over _ten thousand_."

Kamijou averted his eyes.

"Ten thousand of my sisters murdered so that – that _thing_ could complete his craze for power. What was the point? He is already the most powerful esper alive!"

She broke down slightly, voice cracking but refusing to cry. She'd already shed tears. Even one would be too many for _him_. "I can't forgive him. Maybe you can, but I could never. Not when I saw him slip his fingers in my last sister's blood and _implode_ her. Not when all I saw was that alley drenched in red. Drenched in her blood, and him standing there. _Laughing_."

"I'm the _soulmate_ of someone like that! What is that supposed to say about me?"

He just watched her. Kamijou wanted to tell her that it just meant that she was the most selfless, self-sacrificing, kind person to have someone so opposite to her for an ideal partner. That it said more about how incredible she was than how terrible he was. He didn't. It wouldn't have made her feel better, wouldn't have erased the desolation and pain of her experiences.

A soulmate was supposed to be the ideal partner. It didn't mean that soulmates would in all cases get together, but it said a lot about the kind of person one would find attractive, appealing. It had nothing to do with what that person had done in his or her life, but about the personality traits and physical characteristics that made up the basic building blocks of who that person was. He knew it would tear at her forever that Accelerator was the kind of person that was her perfect match.

Kamijou left shortly after, unable to come up with any words to comfort her except a soft, "You don't have to worry about the experiment anymore." She wasn't sure if that meant that Accelerator refused to continue it, or if something else had happened after she'd passed out. She sat, staring at the cool white of the bed sheets for some time and when her friends came in to visit her later that day, all the traces of tears and despair had been wiped off of her face and stuffed into a tiny box in her mind she'd never open again. She waved off her friends' concerns with some made up story about an accident, and if Kuroko hugged her just a little bit tighter and tried to molest her just a little bit more obviously than she normally did, Mikoto let her. And if she glanced briefly at her friend's blank wrist in longing, no one noticed.


End file.
